DAPSY national chief Dr Kelvin Yii has slammed Bersatu Youth chief Wan Ahmad Fayhsal Wan Ahmad Kamal for continuing to play up divisive racial sentiments and frame the country’s political sphere with “updated and narrow viewpoints of racial protectionalism”.
Wan Fayhsal had been cooking up a social media storm over his comments on identity politics in Malaysia on several separate occasions in the past few days.
“What is ironic is that while he claims that he disagrees with such divisive identity politics, he still chooses to play it up and promote disunity rather than taking the brave step to find ways to mould a more mature and positive political culture to bring everyone together,” Yii said in a statement.
“This is what he as the Deputy Minister of National Unity should have been doing in the first place, and as a youth leader he should be promoting new and constructive politics rather than affirming and reinforcing old politics of communal division.”
Yii, who is also the Bandar Kuching MP, also criticised Wan Fayhsal for dragging DAP into his narrative as an “attempt to justify his narrow political viewpoint”, when in fact the fundamentals and values of DAP are a total contrast from what Wan Fayhsal and his party stands for.
“DAP has always been a multi-racial party that stands on the values of social justice, freedom and economic solidarity for everyone regardless of race and religion,” Yii pointed out.
“Rather than trying to be an ethno-champion of any particular race, we are more focused on issues such as ensuring better jobs for all Malaysians, establishing a robust safety net to protect the people and providing top-quality social services in terms of healthcare and education.”
Yii went on to say that while Wan Fayhsal had carelessly tried to position the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition as a protector of the Malay community he had hid the fact that it failed to protect the community from skyrocketing living costs, depressed take-home pay and loss of employment.
“That is why what we Malaysians need protection from is people like him whose mindset and viewpoints are contrary to what the country needs moving forward.”
Wan Fayhsal previously said in an interview with The Vibes on Tuesday (April 5) that Malays reject Pakatan Harapan’s “liberalism” because they need a protector to fulfil a neo-feudal and tribal mentality.
A day later, he clarified via Twitter that he was not in favour of a feudal mentality among Malays and said that he was only “depicting what is implicit based on the findings of Malay and Bumiputera history, communal knowledge and culture”.
Amid continued pushback against his claim, he later pointed out via a series of social media on April 7 that the communal protector mentality is not unique to Malays only, suggesting that Chinese voters still hold on to DAP because they see DAP as a “protector of Chinese interests”. – April 8, 2022
